


without

by SHSLdiva



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Introspection, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 22:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6303346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHSLdiva/pseuds/SHSLdiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>when ronan and adam start dating, gansey can't stop thinking about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	without

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't finished/posted a fanfic in like two years. i finished blue lily, lily blue and couldn't get this idea out of my head so i wrote it in like 30 minutes. i haven't actually reread it; i'm scared to.

It was strange how long it took Gansey to notice, and now that he had noticed, it screamed at him. He wasn’t jealous, exactly, but there was something odd about _Gansey and Adam_ and _Gansey and Ronan_ becoming _Adam and Ronan_ . It was also odd how, upon further thought, it made so much sense.  
  
He was happy for them. Really, truly happy. But he also ached in a way that he didn’t want to admit. They were two jagged pieces fit together and they didn’t need him for it. He didn’t want them to need him, though. It was a mutual give and take, but suddenly, he was not part of the equation.

He still had Noah and Blue, but he also didn’t, because Noah was a ghost and Blue was a different beast altogether. They weren’t _his_ but he didn’t want to claim ownership of anyone. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, exactly.  
  
The only thing Gansey knew for certain was that every time Ronan and Adam’s fingers ghosted just so slightly across one another, he ached. There was something impenetrable about the way they were now, like he would have to fight hard just to stand beside them. It was odd.

It was all so very odd.

And it made perfect sense that the dreamer and the dream would fit together; that Ronan and Adam would match each other in a way that no one else could. And now, Gansey couldn’t stop overanalyzing every interaction they had ever had for something more. He turned it over and over again in his brain like a map or a clue or some hint about Glendower that he’s seen a million times, but if he turns it just right in the right light, suddenly he’ll see something new.  
  
He hated that- felt like a clingy girlfriend- and hated that he applied that term to himself in reference to either of them. He wanted to forget about it and just move on. They were together; that was it. But his mind had a gear missing or something because he could never just move on. Every single thought he had was life or death.  
  
Gansey hated that, too. He couldn’t sleep because his mind wouldn’t stop moving, circling the same path over and over again. He never seemed to tire of moving in circles, either. So he lay awake at night, turning over actions and inactions in his ever churning river of a mind. He lay awake staring at his model of Henrietta, reaching out tenderly to fix what had been destroyed. He lay awake trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and rinsing and repeating and rinsing and repeating again.  
  
He was ever so tired of this game his mind played, just wanted to get some sleep for once. He didn’t want to think about the fact that where he had failed Ronan, Adam had picked up the slack. Didn’t want to think about how he failed to notice that Ronan had ever even had a crush on Adam, or Adam on Ronan. Didn’t want to think, didn’t want to think, didn’t want to think.  
  
So then he’d just think about not thinking, and the cycle would repeat itself. He’d spend another sleepless night replaying everyone’s actions in his mind to see if he had missed anything because he was so _caught_ in his own world. He hated himself. He hated that he hated himself. He wanted to stop thinking.  
  
His thoughts only seemed to get more obsessive as the days went by, which he didn’t fail to note was ironic. He was like a broken record player, scratching out the same screeching notes over and over. He was broken, but he had no right to be. Not like Adam. Not like Ronan. There was a sense of otherness to them, and it grew with each passing day.  
  
They were something _more_ . How Gansey longed to be something more. He wanted to know what it was like to be not quite human, not quite defined by the laws of the universe because he _was_ the universe. It was something Blue would scoff at, because Gansey already had so much. Was born with so much. But he was utterly and wholly human, surrounded by friends who were rapidly escaping the confines of that word.  
  
Gansey was not them. He was many things, but he was not them. And his biggest fear, though he was loathe to admit it, was that one day they would grow bored of him because of how human he was. The more entrenched in the other-worldly they got, the further ahead they seemed to run. He wanted so badly to catch up to them, but he could never seem to.  
  
Always one step ahead. Always hidden around a corner. He could never find a way to reach them even though he was so very good at finding things. Some things were meant to stay hidden. Some people weren’t meant to transcend. And though there were many who would claim that Gansey, if anyone, was meant to become something more, Gansey himself wasn’t entirely sure of that.  
  
Because he was so human. At the core of it all, he was so very achingly, desperately human. He wasn’t the same as they were. Maybe that was why Gansey so desperately chased what was hidden. Maybe his soul cried out for what it knew was beyond it’s walls. The darkness was full of something that Gansey craved, and he wanted to shine light into every single nook and cranny and see everything that was to be seen.  
  
In the end, he wanted more than himself. He ached in his bones for something more. Maybe that was the reason he had been drawn to Ronan and Adam. There was something hidden within them that he so desperately wanted.  
  
He didn’t want to admit any of this, but Richard Campbell Gansey the third was never a liar. And he couldn’t lie to himself that he was jealous when it was mostly fear. Fear of being left behind. Fear of being forgotten. Fear of never catching up to his friends, and sitting alone in their dusty wake.

So when he looked at Adam and Ronan, he couldn’t help but feel sorrow along with his pride. He had been trying for so long to raise them up, never realizing one day they’d soar high above him.


End file.
